Books and Borrowers, 1747-1857: Innerpeffray Library and the History of Scottish Reading

Innerpeffray is the oldest free lending library in Scotland. Founded by David Drummond, Lord Maddertie, in 1680, it began in a small upstairs room of Innerpeffray chapel, where Maddertie deposited his own books. His Will details that he has "lately begun a library" and that it is to be "for the benefit of all young students", leaving a significant sum (and tying up income from the estates) towards ensuring the survival and expansion of that library "in time comeing". Used, but not well managed, the library was finally given due care and attention by Robert Hay Drummond, who inherited it in the 1740s, and commissioned the Georgian building in which the collection is still housed. He also saw that the collection was augmented, as originally intended. At least three thousand books were added to the original collection of around 450 during Hay Drummond's lifetime, and their acquisition was informed to some extent by his own suggestion. Here the library stayed, open for borrowing to the general public for free, until as recently as 1968.

Apart from being a fantastic early example of a public lending library, Innerpeffray is such a rare source at it houses a continuous register of books borrowed from 1747 until 1968. These records provide an insight not only into the popularity of the library and the reading habits of its frequenters, but also the social and economic make-up of the surrounding landscape, often giving the address and occupation of the borrower alongside details of what they borrowed when. This is a resource invaluable to scholars of the history of both libraries and reading. While other scholars, such as Mark Towsey, have had access to the borrowers' records and collections at Innerpeffray as part of other projects, my doctoral research uniquely allows me extensive, lengthy access to the archives and collections, giving me the opportunity to explore the borrowings in more depth and with more context than ever before.

Maxine Branagh, in her previous post for the 21st-Century Book Historian blog, has given a great overview of the pros and cons associated with looking at the history of reading from Borrowers' records. While my project is directly focused on the period of the first volume of the borrowers' register (1747-1857), my research questions so far are more related to Library History than the History of Reading, though both feed into each other. This has meant looking for the fuller picture of what informs the choice each borrower makes when they pluck an item from the shelf. How did it get there in the first place? Who decided which books were included? What does the individual volume look like? What does it feel like to read? This is almost impossible to know without survivals like Innerpeffray, where the books, the borrowers' register and the building itself all survive, together, in their original location.

As demonstrated by our pilot studies, the project's findings will be of interest to a wide range of potential non-academic audiences, including but not limited to: family history researchers; modern library users and readers; librarians and information professionals; children and schoolteachers; and the public at large.
We have identified two major impact objectives, and seven pathways towards achieving those objectives. Our first objective is the creating and sharing of new knowledge, and we will achieve this objective through disseminating the results of our research to the widest possible audience, both on our website and social media activity, and through the events below, which have been designed to drive further traffic to our website.
Both academic and non-academic stakeholders will be the beneficiaries of our Conference in Year 3, held under the joint auspices of the Universities of Stirling and Glasgow, the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals Library & Information History Group and the Historic Libraries Forum. The conference will allow the sharing and transfer of knowledge between academic researchers and library and information professionals, as well as highlighting the importance of the little-known archival record to a much wider audience than heretofore.
Our Teaching Materials and Workshops for Teachers will similarly enable the sharing and transfer of knowledge among researchers, schoolteachers and schoolchildren, equipping teachers with knowledge and understanding of cutting-edge new research and the skills and materials to pass this knowledge on.
The Creative Writing Workshops will engage new audiences with the archival records, and will place particular emphasis on the ways in which reading and creative writing enhance quality of life.
Our second impact objective is to develop and improve existing public services, specifically public libraries and museum and heritage organisations.
Historic libraries have frequently not been able to use their borrowers' registers in ways that would help them to tell their stories effectively to visitors and other users. In some cases this is because of the untranscribed and/or disorganised state of the MS registers; in others it is because they simply do not have the staff or volunteer knowledge to use these rare and interesting resources appropriately. Our Exhibition and Social Media Kit will provide the necessary tools for librarians, volunteers, or other staff members easily to create exhibitions and other publicity tools for their own institution.
We will also run three hands-on Training Workshops on 'Using Historic Borrowers' Records' for staff, volunteers and the public at three of our partner libraries: Innerpeffray, Glasgow University Library, and the National Library of Scotland. Each workshop will be delivered by one or more of the project team, and will have a different remit: Identifying Obscure Titles and Unknown People; What the Records Can and Can't Tell Us; and Patterns and Trends in Borrowing. These Training Workshops will provide useful skills to staff and volunteers at the partner libraries, who will then be able to tell their stories more effectively to the wider public.
Finally, our Produce a Postcard Event will benefit prisoners, adult learners and targeted members of the wider public, who will receive postcards that contain information about how to access modern library services and our website. These will be disseminated by the Scottish Book Trust. Drawing on the project's initial research on the impacts of library access, the postcards will be designed to engage marginalised communities with Scotland's complex history of cross-class reading, autodidacticism and communal self-improvement, manifested particularly in libraries such as Leadhills and Innerpeffray. They will also provide encouragement and practical information about how to use library services.